View: Defining sporting success without context results in hype and disappointment

What is sporting success, and who defines it? Is it the players who put their bodies and reputations on the line, the fans who pay to create a spectacle, or the media hordes that sit in judgment?

Where does one draw the line between realistic expectations and fantasy? Does Manchester City’s FA Cup defeat to Wigan Athletic really take the sheen off what has, till now, been a stunning season? Do India’s romps in the whiteball formats in South Africa overshadow the two Test defeats that cost them the series? And does merely making it as far as the World Cup Qualifiers constitute success for an emerging cricket nation like Nepal?


Let’s start with City. Such is Pep Guardiola’s reputation and catalogue of achievement that anything less than a trophy has come to be regarded as failure. The bar was set so high in his first three seasons with Barcelona that it will be almost impossible for him to scale such altitudes again, especially with clubs that don’t have the same allure for players as the pride of Catalonia.

Take his three years at Bayern Munich, for example. Despite two league-and-cup doubles, and a hattrick of Bundesliga wins while barely breaking sweat, his time there is largely viewed as a failure because Bayern didn’t add to their tally of five Champions League titles. But in each season under Guardiola, the Bavarians reached the last four. The teams they lost to were Real Madrid, Barcelona and Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid dogs of war. At City, he inherited a side that has won two league titles, an FA Cup and two League Cups in the past hal fcentury.

There has been no European achievement to speak of since the nowdefunct Cup Winner’s Cup was won in 1969-70. For a club with such a history, a league title — almost assured, such is the lead — and a strong Champions League run should be reason enough for a tickertape parade in May. The same is true of Indian cricket.

As praiseworthy as the victory at the Wanderers was, India lost the Test series. Then again, it wasn’t like they had won in the past. You could argue that in 2006-07, when they lost 2-1, and four years later when they managed a 1-1 draw, they kept the series alive till the final afternoon. On the flip side, they managed to take 60 wickets, and embarrassed South Africa on what was the most spiteful pitch of the series.

And no matter what the hosts’ injury situation, the 5-1 thrashing Virat Kohli’s men meted out in the ODIs was a radical break from tradition. India’s bilateral record in ODIs is just five wins and 21 defeats before this series.

When the players return to India at the end of the month, their two-month stint in South Africa can either be viewed in a cup-half-emptybecause-we-lost-the-Tests kind of way, or as a sign that India once again have a squad capable of matching the best in any conditions.

In a more forgiving and tolerant age, we might have been looking ahead to the prospect of Paras Khadka and Sandeep Lamichhane, the teenage legspin prodigy lighting up next summer’s World Cup in England.

But with the game’s entrenched powers having decided that the competition will only feature ten sides, it’s an Everest climb for the likes of Nepal to even qualify. They made it out of the World Cricket League Division Two in thrilling fashion but must now see off the likes of West Indies, Afghanistan, Ireland, Netherlands and Zimbabwe, the hosts, to clinch just one of two spots available.

Given what a mess the Cricket Association of Nepal is, it can be argued that just getting this far is a success. It’s just a shame that the road ahead has been made narrower and narrower because cricket’s ‘haves’ lack the vision and the empathy to grow the game.